December 2020

We made it!!!!!!!!!!!! Kyle's program is officially over and I just want to cry. Cry because Im relived. Cry because I am so happy to have my husband back. Cry because I am so tired. Cry because I am emotionally drained. These past 6 months have been the most difficult months of my life. Taking care of 4 little kids alone during a pandemic making sure all their physical/emotional/intellectual/spiritual needs are all met while trying to not permenently scar them with separation anxiety cause their dad is gone has been rough. 

To celebrate, Kyle and the other graduates took their wives to get pedicures and be pampered for the day. Kaye and Brady also met up with us in Vegas for the graduation and were generous enough to watch the kids so I could go out and get spoiled. It was nice to see all the other wives who have been going through the same challenge of separation from their spouses as I have been going through. That night we all got dressed up and partied on the Las Vegas strip. Well, I was more like the chaperone since I don't drink, but we still had a great time. Afterwards we all met our pilot husbands where they were awarded the coveted Weapons instructor patch and I found out that Kyle won distinguished graduate. That basically means be finished first in his class, and once again I couldn't be more proud. To think he finished top of his class while driving down practically every weekend to take care of 4 kids and wife who was barely keeping it together says a lot about his character and work ethic. He is the hardest worker I know and I am grateful for his stability and support #proudwife.

The next day we took the kids to the children's museum in Las Vegas and grandma Kaye and grandpa Brady took us all out to eat at Rainforest Cafe. We have never been before but the kids have been begging to go. It was fun and the kids had a blast with all the robotic animals. Even grams (grandma Ruth) came down to party with us. Her memory has been slipping lately due to her recent diagnoses of alzheimer's, but it was still nice to make some more memories with her as well.

It has been so nice since we returned home knowing that Kyle doesn't have to leave to go back to Vegas for training... he is home! He had a week off of work which was nice to try to get things done and for us all to relax a little bit with him around.

My grammie passed away a few weeks ago. Since her husband is buried here in Mesa, AZ at the cemetery with all the other ancestral Macdonalds, we wanted to make sure grammie was buried there too. So all the family came down to AZ for the funeral service. It was fun for us all to see them and hang out. I haven't seem some of my siblings in several years. We made and decorated gingerbread men, and spent hours talking and catching up. 

At grammies funeral service it was very small and quaint with just a gave side service. Only family was there and we shared our loving memories and experiences we had with grammie. I sure love my grammie and will always have amazing, fond memories of her. She was so witty before her strokes, and even afterwards she didn't age bitterly but as the sweetest, most loving elderly women. She really endured to the end. I am so happy knowing that she is freed from this body that was such a decaying trap for her spunky self, and to know she is reunited with her husband again. I look forward to the day that I too am reunited with her and all my other loved ones on the other side of the veil. 

The week of Christmas came and only excitement filled the air. The kids wrote their letters for Santa and now it was up to me to accomplish the impossible and find Santa for the kids to meet. Due to COVID they canceled all Santa meet and greets, so when I found a farm an hour away that had the jolly old man himself present, I jumped on it and brought the kids. They loved the chance to tell Santa in person what they wanted for Christmas, and we even enjoyed doing a few crafts and looking at lights.

We did our standard Christmas Eve pizza dinner at Peter Piper's Pizza cause the kids look forward to it every year, and attend church in our best Christmas attire. On the morning of Christmas the kids were all surprised and excited to see that Santa had come. We stretched out the day and had kids only open a few presents in the mooring so they could open gifts all day long. The best gift of all is that on Christmas night Carly and Gary with their two boys came into town for the Benham family reunion.

The first ever Benham family reunion was a success! It was right after Christmas in Arizona which made it easy for us since we didn't have to really go anywhere. We all stayed at an AirBnB and did fun crafts with the kids, a scavenger hunt, corn hole and other games till it got dark outside, took the kids to the zoo, ate lots of yummy food, and just enjoyed each other's company by staying up and talking till the early hours of the morning. I can laugh about it now but during the time it was not funny, but Nate came to the family reunion sick. We all tried to stay away form him, but with that many people in close proximity it was bound to happen. Every day one to two people would start throwing up and get sick. We all joked that it was like the hunger games and when another would fall ill the sound of the cannon would echo throughout the house announcing their "death." We were lucky to make it out almost all intact, only Brayden got sick from our family.